Thus Spoke the Plant by Monica Gagliano is what she calls a “phytobiography.” She tells a story of her journey into the frontiers of plant science, and how it changed her life. The book is a little too New Agey for my taste though, and I had thought there would be more science. Instead it reads like an example of neopagan literature, with plant spirits, shamans, and drug-induced vision quests. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that, it just surprised me to read it from a scientist.Nevertheless, Ms. Gagliano has certainly made strides in her field and is changing how we think of plants.

I’ve long believed that you should choose companies you want to do business with that share the same values you do. Things like renewable energy, protecting the ocean, privacy, animal welfare, and others. When I got an email about the Newday Impact Investing app, I was genuinely delighted. It’s an investing app that lets you do just that; invest in companies with values. Every Newday Impact Portfolio is a custom-made, proprietary, and targeted investment strategy built to benefit a specific area of impact. The multi-portfolio approach allows them to provide a fully-diversified investment strategy while impacting the areas you care about directly. Portfolios include ocean health, gender equality, animal welfare, and climate action. On Newday’s website, you have to enter your phone number to get the app link, which seems sketchy and unnecessary. Use the direct App Store link instead. App Store: Newday – Free

There’s a watch that wants to help curb ocean plastic pollution. Awake Watch’s mission is to prove that there is a smarter and more sustainable way to consume goods. It wants to show that it can create objects with innovative design and very high quality, while still limiting its environmental impact as much as possible. And give people the opportunity to make a difference. The fabric the company uses for the strap is made from plastic waste, which has been collected from South East Asian seas and Japan. It turns the plastic into pellets, and then into nylon yarn. It creates the straps directly from rolls of this material, which is made using no chemical dyes, and is certified by the Global Recycled Standard label. The leather straps are made by a French company that uses Italian leather tanned in a vegetable tanning process. The Kickstarter was fully funded in an hour. To get a watch, rewards start at US$229.

Apple has a new video in its series of Earth Day cartoons explaining the company’s environmentally-oriented accomplishments. The new one—Can an apple grow a forest?—talks about how a dinner meeting with Senior VP Lisa Jackson led to the decision to buy or grow a forest. The result, according to the video, was an effort to put 1 million acres of forest under responsible management by 2020. “At this point, more than 99% of the papers and fibers we use are responsibly sourced or recycled,” Connie Yang, product and packing design, said. Which is remarkable—all the more so when you’re talking about the world’s most profitable company.

Apple launched a new video called “Earth Day 2017 — Does my iPhone believe in reincarnation?” It’s part of the cartoon series the company started on Earth Day earlier in May, but this one takes a look at Liam. That’s Apple’s purpose-built recycling robot that pulls iPhones apart so the components can be reused. I like this series of environmentally-themed cartoons. They’re fun, interesting, and informative. Lisa Jackson, Apple Vice President Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, tweeted the video Thursday.

Apple has put out four videos that take an animated look at yaks, zero-waste initiatives, a breathing building, and making artificial sweat. Each focuses on a different aspect of Apple’s global environmental efforts for Earth Day, which takes place on April 22nd, 2017.

Apple prides itself on environmentalist efforts—and with good reason. With global climate change on the rise, and the changes going on in the EPA, it’s up to individual companies to manage their environmental responsibility. With the release of Apple’s 2017 progress report, the company noted that it tripled the number of its supplier sites in its energy efficiency program.